


Six Delicious Flavors

by stunningepiphanies



Series: 1990-verse [4]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 12:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7439101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stunningepiphanies/pseuds/stunningepiphanies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1965: A near death experience on a mission leads Napoleon to finally open up to his partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Delicious Flavors

**Author's Note:**

> Haha, hey guys! I didn't die or vanish or whatever, but stress and grad school are a hell of a thing. I've been working on this piece for goddamn forever, so I hope you guys enjoy!

“Honestly, I am shocked it took this long for someone to stab you that many times.” Illya frowned at his partner tucked neatly under his crisp, sterile hospital sheets. The bastard didn't even have the decency to look freshly stabbed; there was too much color in his cheeks and life in his eyes. Even when he was actively bleeding out all over Illya’s best jacket, he only managed to look artfully disheveled. Meanwhile, Illya was squeezed into what was probably the smallest chair the clinic had, still covered in his, his partner’s, and a THRUSH operative’s blood. He could still feel the heat of it on his skin, though all the life had leeched out and dried into his clothes hours ago. 

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, Cowboy,” he’d told his partner hours before, trying to keep him awake long enough to drag his useless ass back to the car. 

Solo had just laughed, flecks of blood staining his pale lips. “Don't be ridiculous, Peril. I know exactly where it all is.”

Three deep stabs to the gut, and somehow the knife managed to miss any vital organs or arteries. All he'd needed was some fresh blood- like the damn vampire that he was- and a few stitches here and there. It was disgusting, really. No wonder he'd never been able to catch up to Solo the night they'd run into each other- there was someone out there looking out for the American. Illya just wasn’t sure if that someone was looking down or up at him. Maybe a little of both.

Solo, in his eternal nonchalance, just shrugged. “Well,” he sighed, reaching for the Jell-O a nurse had brought him, “it’s not the first time someone’s tried, I assure you. I’m usually much quicker to stop the second, you know, _thrust_.”

“That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

Solo snorted mid-bite , and choked. He coughed, spewing bright red goop all over his blindingly white sheets. It was nearly satisfying to see the American ruffled, Illya thought guiltily. Maybe he'd pop a stitch or irritate the ribs he'd bruised days before, but something needed to put one of those artfully oiled hairs out of place if the knife hadn't. The only problem now was now it looked like he'd hacked up his insides all across his lap. It might've turned Illya’s stomach if he hadn't already seen someone's intestines today. 

“Peril, you really pick the most inopportune times to have a sense of humor.” Solo frowned, brows furrowed in disappointment. “And look. You've made me waste all that Jell-O. Strawberry’s my favorite.”

“Shut up and drink your soup, Cowboy.”

“Mmph. Fine, mother.“

They lapsed back into silence, Solo turning his attention his bland hospital dinner of chicken soup and applesauce. Illya, in turn, turned his focus to a new book tucked away in his jacket. It was one of Gaby’s, swiped from her flat weeks ago when he was desperate for new reading material and filled with morbid curiosity. He was fairly certain she hadn't put it down in months- so really, this was more a personal covert mission to gather intel than a quick read. Ever since she'd picked it up, Gaby’d been espousing all sorts of new ideas on the sexes. Equal pay, women in management, freeing the secretary pool from their servitude, and the like. It was all redundant, in his opinion. Under capitalism, maybe women had to fight this hard for workplace equality- _maybe_ \- but back in _Russia_.....but Illya never got father than that before Gaby would cut him off. No one wanted to hear the communist opinion on women’s lib. No one wanted to hear the communist opinion on anything, apparently, unless it was about the newest undercover wardrobes. And even then it was something of an uphill battle. 

Regardless of his and hers mismatching opinions, there was a new dust jacket on the book; no one needed to see the resident KGB operative reading about femininity, the mystique of which or otherwise.

“They’re giving me a month off for this, you know. I’m going to Paris, I have an apartment there.”

Illya looked up, startled out of his imaginary squabble with his woman. Solo usually took the chance to shatter a perfectly good silence, but that wasn't really what caught his attention. The American rarely offered anything about himself freely, unless it was a part of one of his many undercover backstories or something off-color. It was typical of men in their line of work, of course; men like them who overshared about their actual lives usually were found in the bottom of rivers or on beaches with their hands cut off and teeth missing. Solo was usually no different. One could say he was more secretive than the norm, thanks to his background in sensitive acquisitions. 

The only thing that wasn't a surprise was Solo’s having a safe house in Paris. With the kind of money he no doubt had stored in Swiss banks, he could afford it. He could probably afford one in every arrondissement, and keep them all furnished in antiques and burlesque girls. Illya opened his mouth to say something- he wasn't quite sure what, but it would be _devestating_ , surely- but Solo continued as if he were just commenting on the weather. “While I’m gone, I need you to do something for me. As a friend.”

As bombshells went, this wasn’t so groundbreaking. Illya’s admission of love to Gaby was groundbreaking. The time they'd all fallen into bed together was groundbreaking. But one of them finally admitting their friendship? It was inevitable, and it didn't make Illya any more comfortable. For over two years they’d worked closely, but neither man was so careless as to call one another friend- the relationship of their their respective agencies were the geopolitical version of a hot dumpster fire. Everyone knew the KGB and CIA mixed about as well as bleach and vinegar, and their dealings smelled about as noxious. If their handlers ever knew either of them were anything but coldly professional with one another, that would be it for their time at U.N.C.L.E. 

Illya, of course, had some _concerns_. 

“You’re not dying, are you?” He leaned forward to examine the remnants of Jell-o clinging to Solo’s sheets. Was there actual blood hidden in all that red dye and fake strawberry? Or were those dark flakes soaking into the cotton just chunks of berry? 

Solo heaved a put-upon sigh.“Don’t be dramatic, I’m just asking you a favor.” He leveled a look at him, and instantly Illya straightened. “In my jacket, over there, there’s an inside pocket with a photo.” Illya, looked him up and down, reluctant to give up on the ‘actively dying’ option. 

“Go on. Look!”

“Alright! Alright, I’m looking.” He held his hands up in surrender, then grabbed Solo’s coat draped over the other empty visitor’s seat. The jacket would have been nice if it weren't for the two ragged, bloody holes in a front panel. Well, no. It was could still be nice, if you stitched up the holes well enough. He quickly found the pocket- it had missed the knife by centimeters- and palmed the picture. 

The photo gave him pause once he could get a good look. It showed a pretty black woman standing on some Parisian balcony, an infant in her arms. Newborn, by the looks of it. It wasn’t a terribly remarkable photograph, obviously recent, but nothing in it so suspicious that would warrant a CIA operative holding onto it. “Who is this?” Illya’s brow creased in confusion. He flipped the photo over and over, looking for script. Code, something standardly suspicious for a CIA agent. He found nothing but the date, scrawled in pencil in a corner. Why would Cowboy he be carrying around a photo of some woman and her baby?

Solo sighed, sagging back into his too-thin hospital-issue pillows. “I got that in the mail a few weeks before Waverley sent us out to Seoul. I knew I shouldn’t have gone out, but-”

Illya’s fingers tapped lightly against the back of the photo. “This is not what I asked.”

“Her name’s Colleen. She’s my fiancee. And, obviously, that’s my son.”

Well, obviously. 

Illya found himself looking from the photo, back to Solo, and back to the photo again. This was….no, surely not. He couldn't have just had a family hidden away in some arrondissement without anyone knowing. The CIA would've known. Waverly would've known. The _KGB_ would've known. Secret families just don't stay secret for very long, not in their line of work. Oh, men tried, hid their wives and babies out in the middle of nowhere Romania or Canada, but their work always caught up with them in the end. The harder a man worked to hide his family, the worse it turned out in the end. But then again, this was Napoleon Solo.

“Who else knows?”

Solo waved the question away with a hand. “Oh, Waverly. My mother. Besides that, it seems all sides are still in the dark.” He practically preened, so proud of outsmarting the men who kept his balls on that long leash. Maybe they'd let it get too long this time around, if their prize could slip something this massive over them. 

Illya leaned back in his seat and seriously considered being impressed. “The CIA knows nothing?” Surely if their benefactor knew, Solo’s handlers back home had an idea. Solo was good- amazing, really- but he couldn't be _that_ good. Napoleon just snorted, shaking his head with a shade of disgust. 

“So, no?”

“No,” he agreed with a short nod. “They're why I have her there in the first place.” Illya was sure his frown got a little too deep, because he continued without prompting. “Peril, it might surprise you that even though we like to go on about freedom and liberty, America still has a few issues with some of its citizens.” Solo’s mouth was a hard line across his face now, any traces of that usual mirth totally drained away. “And the CIA doesn't take kindly to their agents publicly operating outside the bounds of common decency when it comes to their personal lives. ”

It didn't surprise him, not one bit, but admitting it felt like rubbing salt into a very open and weeping wound at the worst time. International member measuring could wait for another day, when both of them were on top of their game and there was maybe only two stab wounds between them. Illya sighed. “Why do you always invite trouble? 

“What do you mean,” Solo replied after a beat, eyes narrowing a fraction, “‘inviting trouble’, Peril?” His tone was airy, light, as effervescent as champagne and Solo himself, but a handful of years working by his side told Illya the man was picking his words out carefully. 

“You could have had any woman you wanted, and you picked…” Illya trailed off, waving his hand at nothing in particular. He struggled for a moment to find the right words, something delicate enough to fit the situation. “The one to cause you problem.”

Solo soured. Not visibly, of course, but something in the atmosphere of the room turned like a poorly sealed jar of pickles. “Really, Kuryakin? This is what you're going to judge me on? The men were all fine, but my wife is an issue?”

That was…absolutely not what he meant, at all, and the accusation settled in his stomach like sour milk. Setting aside that Illya had no room to judge Solo’s fondness for men- a less than legal taste they _both_ shared- he was long past judging his friend for anyone he brought into his bedroom. “No,” he replied slowly, fingers tapping idly on his thigh, “not judging. I am sure your wife is better than you deserve, but you always look for things that…” He trailed off again, this time grasping at anything that wouldn't fig himself deeper. 

“And tell me, that isn't judging to you?” 

Illya snorted, crossing his arms across his chest defensively. “Judging her, maybe. What woman would want to marry you?”

He was pleased to see a smirk threatening at the corner of Solo’s mouth. “I…well. She’s always had horrible taste in men.”

And as suddenly as it had formed, the tension in the room dissolved. Illya sagged in his chair a little, shoulders losing that hard, tense edge. His tapping fingers stilled against his bicep, that buzzing energy dissipating into the air like smoke. Solo looked a little softer around the edges too, giving up on his upset for the sake of humor. Humor, or the opiates were kicking in again. 

“I'm sorry,” Solo said, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and before he pulled himself back up to get better look at his partner . “I just worry. About her, about the baby…about getting stabbed. Or shot. Something happening to her when I'm not there.” He laughed humorlessly, scrubbing his hand over a few days growth of stubble. “I need to get to her soon. She's probably already wondering why I haven't contacted her in weeks.”

“Is that what you needed from me?” They'd both been absent from any kind of communication for weeks on the mission, it was true. There wasn't even so much as a letterbox in their remote outpost, and the telephone there had died at least ten years before they got there. And now here Cowboy was, back in civilization and they weren't letting him far enough out of his room to even get to the phone down the hallway. “There is payphone down the street, if you want.”

“No,no, I'll handle that. I don't want to subject her to your particular brand of…. _you_ just yet. ” Solo waved the offer away with one hand, though Illya noticed the effort it took his friend to not wince. The arguing probably wasn't doing his injury any favors. “It's nothing so drastic, I just need you to lie for me when I leave.”

“About what?” There was no problem with lying- he did it all the time, of course- but no one was getting paid in this situation. Babies and wives didn't cover your ass when the Kremlin and Washington came asking questions. 

“Just…when someone asks, tell them all I've gone to Argentina. It's on record that I have a cache hidden out there and-”

“I know, I've read your files.”

“ _I have a cache hidden out there_ , and more than a few old acquaintances . It's more than enough to keep eyes away from Paris until I can get finally get Colleen and the baby back here.”

It wasn't a terrible plan, unlike the last one that got him a butterfly knife in the gut. It would take over a week for anyone skulking around Buenos Aires to realize the man wasn't there, two if they were Americans. “I can do that.” He smirked, scratching at a patch of stubble on his jaw. “I will tell Gaby tonight. The whole of UNCLE will know by breakfast.”

“It's a plan then.” Solo nodded once, visibly easing back into his usual lazily cool self. It was a mask, yes, but at least it was a step in the right direction- an indicator that things were stitching themselves back together in the proper order. That smooth grin was even coming back too. The grin, with far too much tooth to make Illya totally comfortable. Nothing good happened when there was that much white in his smile.

“Cowboy, whatever you are about to-”

“ _Although_ ,” he drawled, “I'd be terribly disappointed in you if she could even _get_ to the phone before nine, Peril.”

The other good thing about _The Feminine Mystique_ , Illya learned, was the satisfying sound it made hitting someone in the nose.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) There's so much more to Colleen that I wasn't able to put in this introduction, I can't wait to cover her more. I know this verse started out as a Gallya thing, but oops. I'll get back to them next, I promise. 
> 
> 2) Napoleon Solo likes shitty mid-century jello molds, pass it on.


End file.
